


Futile

by BadHidingSpot



Series: Bradburry 2016 [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, Alpha Derek Hale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 15:33:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5876296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadHidingSpot/pseuds/BadHidingSpot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where Jackson decides to join the pack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Futile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [steamcurious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/steamcurious/gifts).



Try as he might, Jackson knew that resistance was futile. He’d be a member of Derek’s pack whether he wanted to or not because the alternative was that ugly word “Omega”. Plus, Jackson was just having too many problems thus far with the transformation. Bleeding black goo? He was pretty sure he’d have noticed if McCall had had those kinds of problems. And he still hadn’t really transformed yet. Derek seemed to know about this kind of thing. At the very least maybe he could stick with the pack long enough to figure out what was wrong and then maybe he could be an alpha. But the idea of splitting open Derek’s throat made even Jackson queezy. Maybe there was another way to get alpha powers. Jackson was willing to threaten and emotionally torture people for power but murder seemed a little out of the way. Even now he couldn’t think of anyone he hated enough, even McCall, that he’d kill them. Watch that red light leave their eyes. That’s what that Peter guy had done, Derek’s crazy murdering uncle. Something about him seemed so familiar in a way that made Jackson sick with himself. Anything he could do to avoid that kind of skeezy villain master mindedness he’d try.  


And so he found himself in an abandoned train station. Like you do. And he found himself trying to figure out where he recognized this Erica girl from. She was hot, he would have noticed her. And she was confident which just happened to be a check on his list of “things he liked about girls” so he definitely would have noticed her. She must have not been hot before. She must have been some one so quiet and unnoticeable that Jackson would have never seen her. But she was familiar. What was it?  


“Did you piss yourself on camera?” Jackson asked.  


If Jackson had been struggling with the idea of murder it was clear that Erica was not. She had her claws in his throat with a strength he couldn’t match. He wriggled underneath her and glanced around the floor for a weapon; something to strike her with. Instead his eyes landed on Isaac Lahey, watching with an amused smile.  


“Help me you ass hole!” Jackson shouted, or at least tried to but found it difficult with Erica’s nails in his neck.  


“Looks like your problem,” Isaac said shrugging with a vindictive kind of indifference. Isaac seemed happy to deny Jackson any aide.  


“Apologize,” Erica snarled. It felt like Erica had her nails in his throat but Jackson was slowly becoming aware that she had just struck into his neck, into places with less vital body parts. Had she aimed for that? Or was it a lucky accident.  


“Get off of me,” He growled.  


She took a hand and jabbed her nails into his abdomen just under his ribs and pressed upwards. “I’m sorry!” He shouted.  


“Good,” She said smiling but didn’t take either of her hands out.  


“I said it. Let me go.”  


“When did we agree on that?”  


“Fucking bitch!”  


“Erica, get off of him.” Derek, calm and monotone as a tired father during a long car trip back from Disney World, stepped down the stairs. Erica, reluctant to relieve Jackson of any pain, pulled her hand out. Jackson sat up wincing and put a hand to his neck. Derek, too quick for Jackson to see, grabbed him by the wrist and pulled it back. “Don’t. Let me see.” Derek was examining the wound closely.  


“Are you going to kiss it?” Jackson asked a little disgusted.  


“Shut up,” Again the tired dad voice. What had he been through that was so exhausting? Glowering in the school parking lot at Stiles all day? “You’re healing. That’s a good sign.” Derek pulled up Jackson’s shirt to look at the other injury. “The blood is still black. That’s not a good sign.”  


“What color do werewolves bleed?”  


“Red.”  


“What bleeds black?”  


“Douchebags?” Erica suggested from a perch near Isaac. He was leaning on the subway train, his sleeves long enough to cover his palms. The boy brushed his thumb over his own mouth several times. An unconscious habit, Jackson figured. Erica was on a beaten up bench, balancing her body with little effort there.  


“There’s a few things it could be,” Derek answered brushing over Erica’s remark.  


“Thanks for really narrowing it down there Alpha Obvious.” Jackson stood up brushing his shirt and pants clear of any dirt from the floor. “I’m only here because I thought you could help me.”  


“I will. It’s a priority. On a long list of priorities. Another of which I have to get to right now.” Derek picked leaned to pick up his car keys. Jackson snatched them up first.  


“Fuck your other priorities! You promised me-”  


Derek somehow interrupted Jackson without saying anything. He put his hand out for his keys and Jackson stopped talking. He put them in Derek’s hand and snarled to himself.  


“I’m handling it,” Derek said. “But right now there’s a team of hunters out there waiting to kill us and we need to get you all acting like a team.” Derek looked around the room for a moment. “Where’s Boyd?”  


“He went to go check on his mom,” Erica said her voice hitching in a similar way that Allison’s did when she heard that Scott had done something sweet. Jackson rolled his eyes. “She’s been texting him all day. She was worried.”  


“Okay,” Derek nodded, “when he gets back, tell him he shouldn’t be off by himself. We’ll need to pair off. As best we can with an uneven number.”  


“It’s not uneven,” Isaac said. “The three of us, you, Jackson, and Scott we-”  


“Jackson doesn’t have any powers right now,” Derek corrected. Jackson stiffened but, to his own surprise, said nothing. “And Scott still needs to be worked on.”  


“Good luck with that,” Jackson scoffed, “he and Allison are playing out their Romeo & Juliet melodrama. He’s not going to officially join Team Montague and aggravate the situation.”  


“I think of us more like Capulets,” Isaac said with a smirk that told Jackson that Isaac was just trying to be annoying.  


“That doesn’t make any fucking sense,” Jackson said, “Romeo is from House Montague.”  


“So what? Just because Scott is the dude he’s Romeo?” Erica asked.  


“Yeah Scott’s way more Juliet. He’s all mooney and whistful.” Isaac agreed.  


“Maybe,” Erica said shrugging, “But Allison is very Romeo. Sword fights and shit. I could see her stabbing one of us.”  


“Allison wouldn’t do that,” Jackson grumbled, “she’s nice.” The discussion was interrupted by Derek’s phone buzzing.  


“Everyone shut up,” Derek snapped. He was, evidently, not one of those people that could read while other noise was going on. Derek put his phone back in his pocket and rubbed his eyes. “There’s been another murder.” Derek seemed to be devastated by this whereas, Jackson just found it annoying. He kept his mouth shut.  


“Who is it?” Isaac asked cautiously as if afraid that the question might lead to a violent reaction.  


“Local mechanic. Tucker Cornish.”  


“Tucker?” Isaac asked.  


“You know him?” Derek said.  


“How did you get a text on your phone about a murder?” Erica seemed to think this was the more pressing question.  


“Stiles sent me a text.”  


“Why is Stiles texting you? Doesn’t he, like, hate us?”  


“He didn’t. He meant to text Scott. When he wasn’t looking I stole his phone and put my number in under Scott’s name. 

Now Isaac, how do you know Tucker Cornish?” Jackson’s eyebrows went up. He could only imagine Derek trying to struggle through pretending to be Scott via texts. How long could that plan really work anyway? Probably by the end of the day Stiles and Scott would touch base and realize it wasn’t the right number. Of course Stiles would fall for something so unbelievably stupid.  


“Well, it’s just that,” Isaac was nervous and pulling into himself, bringing the sleeves of his sweater down even further trying to hide in the fabric. “It’s not just him exactly. That hunter guy who died, Bennette, they both knew my dad.”  


“Who is also dead,” Erica pursed her lips, “doesn’t seem like a coincidence.”  


“How did they know each other?” Derek pressed.  


Isaac looked down his eyes focused on a loose thread in his shirt. “My dad used to be their swim coach. When my brother was on the team.”  


Jackson had forgotten Isaac had a brother but he saw it very clearly now in his mind’s eye, thinking back to times when Isaac and his brother were having water balloon fights in their front yard. Cameron. That was his name. Jackson remembered glaring at them through his bedroom window wondering why he was in the house all alone. Why did some dippey nobody like Isaac get a brother? Cameron used to pick Isaac up and swing him around until they both fell in the grass. It was funny how completely Jackson had forgotten about it, and now it came back full force like that episode of He-Man he’d seen forty times.  


“Cameron’s dead too,” Jackson said with a shocking lack of cruelty, “even less of a coincidence.”  


“Yeah but Cam died years ago,” Isaac went on, “and I’m sure I’d remember if the report had said ‘eaten by lizard man’.”  


“Regardless,” Derek injected, “this swim thing team doesn’t seem like a coincidence. Can you think of anything else?”  


Isaac nodded but didn’t speak. His mind was working up to something, a memory he was ashamed of. Something he was forced to say he’d forgotten but most likely never could.  


“There was this thing,” Isaac started slowly, annoyingly slowly that Jackson could feel himself shaking with it. “It was years ago. But the whole team had won a meet and my dad was happy. Really happy. He drinks when he’s happy.” Full stop.  


Jackson growled. “Go on numb nuts.”  


Derek shoved Jackson so hard that he hit the back of the subway car, something that was at least six feet away from where Jackson had been standing. “Rush him again and I’ll do worse than that.” Derek threatened vaguely. Jackson slid down to a sitting position, his eyes poised on Isaac.  


“This kid, kind of a friend of mine when I was little, he was over trading comics. It was,” Isaac paused as if realizing that Derek probably did not give a fuck about which comics they were trading and then continued, “it was late. So Matt went down stairs to get his bike to go home and-”  


“Matt Daehler?” Jackson interrupted shooting up off the ground.  


Isaac furrowed his brow. “Yeah. That Matt. From the team.”  


“Stop interrupting,” Derek commanded.  


“You don’t understand,” Jackson said quickly, “he was at my house! That night your dad died. He was the one who filmed me.”  


“Curiouser and curiouser,” Erica stepped forward and put her hand on the back of Isaac’s neck. She rubbed him there in a way that seemed to soothe and relax Isaac’s muscles. He let his shirt sleeves pull away from his palms. “You’re doing good,” She whispered and Jackson was happy that he’d heard it.  


“Tell me what happened,” Derek ordered.  


“Nothing really,” Isaac said in such a way that made it sound like something and not nothing. “They got all rowdy. And they threw him in the pool. My dad had to give him mouth to mouth. He yelled at him. At all of us. Cam got it real bad that night.”  


Jackson was wondering, for a moment, what “it” was that Cam had gotten but then the answer dawned quickly and he kept his mouth shut this time.  


“We should look into this,” Derek concluded. “We need to talk to this Matt kid.”  


“But he hasn’t been bitten. That we know of. You’re the only alpha in town.” Jackson felt a strange vibration in his stomach. It felt the way two opposing magnets do when you try to push them together.  


“I’m not going to ignore a clue just for that,” Derek said snatching up a leather jacket from the floor and tossing it to Jackson. “Someone text Boyd. We’re going to find this Matt kid.”  


Without being told Jackson put the coat on and stood up following at the end the line of Betas going out the door. It felt kind of good, in a way he’d never admit, to be taking orders from someone, to have purpose and go forward. Even so, he couldn’t help but feel like this whole thing, this going to ambush and question Matt, was going to be futile. At least it was futility with purpose.


End file.
